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The Tampa Bay Lightning star’s inability to go to the Olympics is personally devastating, but not fatal to Canada’s gold-medal hopes.

Steven Stamkos, despite a furious rehab effort following a broken leg in November, has announced he won't be fit to compete at the Sochi Olympics. The question is, who will Team Canada choose to take his place? (Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

But the longer his absence from the Tampa Bay Lightning lineup became, the less likely it seemed he would be cleared to play for Canada in Sochi and the more unreasonable it became to imagine that, even if he was cleared at the last minute, he’d be able to get his game up to the necessary speed to compete at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Really, modern medicine relieved Team Canada and Stamkos from having to make a very, very tough call.

If he’d been able to play on Saturday against Detroit, or even Thursday against the Maple Leafs, he would then have had to make an honest assessment as to the state of his game and the Canadian brain trust, led by Tampa GM Steve Yzerman, would have had to do the same.

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What if Stamkos said he could go but Team Canada officials thought he looked lousy? What if he was unsure and Yzerman and Co. were gung-ho?

As it was, a CT scan on Wednesday took the decision out of the player’s hands — and out of the Canadian Olympic hockey team’s hands.

See, emotion can get the best of people in these situations. Decisions can get made for the wrong reasons.

“I honestly believe that we did everything possible in order to have my injured leg ready in time for the Olympics, but I realize you can’t force healing,” he said. “I know, in the best interest of my long-term health, I cannot represent Canada in Sochi, as much as I would like to.”

Given the general jitteriness of NHLers with the setup in Sochi, there’s at least the possibility that the NHL Players’ Association might be less enthusiastic about attending the Olympics in South Korea four years from now, and so this might have been the 23-year-old Stamkos’s last chance.

That said, Stamkos is not yet an established Olympic performer, although 16 goals in 22 games at the world championships suggests he finds the big ice to be a very comfortable fit. Still, other good young players have gone to the Olympics before and struggled to find their game. That might have happened with Stamkos, or it might not have.

Moreover, it would be hard to make the argument that without him Canada’s chance at gold is severely diminished.

Any one of those players could have been named to Team Canada in the first place, and not a complaint would have been heard.

Giroux makes a lot of sense. For starters, like Stamkos he is a right-handed shot, and right now only five of the remaining 13 forwards on Team Canada shoot right.

After starting the season with zero goals and seven assists in his first 15 games, Giroux has 18 goals and 30 assists in his last 42 games. He’s a big reason why the Flyers have recovered from a dreadful 1-7 start and are now in a tight fight for an Eastern Conference playoff berth.

On top of that, he played effectively in the world championships last year and has played in 50 NHL playoff games including the 2010 Stanley Cup final.

What he lacks in explosiveness compared to Stamkos, he makes up for with oodles of experience.

That said, Giroux is more of a playmaker compared to Stamkos. If the thinking is to replace the goals lost by Wednesday’s announcement, Jeff Skinner (.522 goals per game) and Neal (.514) could be choices ahead of St. Louis (.446) or Seguin (.444).

Staal would also be a solid choice, as he was a member of the 2010 gold-medal winning squad in Vancouver and the 2006 Olympic squad as well.

Not an easy choice for Yzerman and his lieutenants, but then again, they can’t go that badly wrong, can they?

Indeed, taking Stamkos with only a single NHL game under his belt would have been a bigger gamble than nominating any one of the other NHLers listed here.

The idea is to win gold, not reward heroic rehab efforts. It’s also not about sentimentality, so as much as many want to see St. Louis replace Stamkos, it shouldn’t be because he’s 38 and a wonderful story for continuing to play at such a high level.

Really, the Stamkos watch should have been called off a week ago and a replacement named then. But in deference to the player — or in the desperate hope that a medical miracle might occur — Team Canada let the story play out.

Now the replacement should be named quickly. That fellow may have to break the news to his family he won’t be going on vacation with them next week.

Vote on Stamkos's replacement

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